Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1887-08-05
THE HUMAN FOOT.
How tho Pedal Extremitics Arc Abused by
Civilized Mankind.

How tho Pedal Extremitics Arc Abused by
| Civilized Mankind.
"How beautiful are thy feet in shoes,
oh Princes daughter!" sang Solomon
nearly three thousand years ago. But
time works wondrous changes, and we
fear the wise king could not repeat his
compliment, were he living in the
midst of us now without doing violence
to his conscience. There is no beauty
left in the feet of the Princess after she
has tortured them for years in the mar
row leather case raised up at one end,
| which we miscall shoes.
The foot has struggled bravely to be-
come something more than mere base
of support, and often painful one for
| the human animal. In our supposed
progcntors it was so flexible and handy
II member rs even, though enormously,
| to receive the designation of hand, and
the apes were called by Cuvier, r,quadru-
mani. Even in some of the human races
at the present day the foot is almost rs
useful for pr hension as is the hand.
Thus the New Caledonians are said to
run up trees with the agility of cat by
grasping the trunk and boughs with
the feet and hands alternately, using
the two with equal facility. And the
instances of individuals, born without
arms, or having lost these members in
early life, who have been able to write,
paint, and perform other tasks requir-
ing precision and accuracy of
touch by means of their feet alone,
are not unknown. But these
rare cases of what might be called
compulsory atavism only serve to en-
phasize the failure of the foot in its at
tempt to raise itself higher than nature
intended it should be raised. The NOR
alists might draw from this warning
for those who are ever striving to do
what their limited capacities render
impossible.
The size Of the foot varies in individ-
uals within wide limits, but the aver
age length among different people is
pretty constant, and would appear,
with certain exceptions, to be an indi-
cation of the degree of civilization to
which the community had attained.
Thus, according to series of measure
ments collected from various sources,
we find the proportionate length of the
foot to the height of the individual,
represented by 100, to be as follows:
Parisians, 14S; Russians, 1876; Hunga-
rians, 1874; Chinese, 15.1; Australian
aborigines, 15.1 Algerians, 14.8. The
Chicago foot is said to bear much
larger proportion to the size of the in
Gividual, and similar disproportion
has recently been affirmed of the pedal
extremity of the Bostonian by popu-
lar writer, but neither of these reports
is substantiated by scientific measure
ments, and, coming from lay sources,
they are not to be relied upon as scien-
tific facts.
The shoes worn by the majority Of
civilized men are an abomination.
They are wrongly constructed, and are
the cause of most of the acquired de-
formities of the foot The axis of tho
sole of the foot should not be straight
line, but should be curved, following
the curve of the foot, with convexity
outward. Tho sole should be of mod
crate thickness and flexible, and the
uppers should fit snugly, but not so as
to cram the foot in any part.-MedicaI
Record.